


i just want to fall in love

by lightningwaltz



Category: Like OOH-AHH - Twice (Music Video)
Genre: Dystopia, F/F, Found Families, Hopeful Ending, Hospitalization, Kissing, Near Future, Recovery, Slice of Life, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6966574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can still be alive, even if you're a zombie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i just want to fall in love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> My wonderful recipient Sumi gave me great prompts for this assignment. I ended up especially inspired by this particular one:
> 
>  
> 
> _[Prompt] #2. Similar to Warm Bodies where the zombies start to come back to life after some bonding, a character or group discover the cure for zombieism is as simple as helping said zombie feel human again. (I imagine some of the people have a WTF moment.)_
> 
>  
> 
> I love that this music video and the teasers had the characters interacting with zombies... sometimes even in harmonious ways! Also the Warm Bodies reference made me want to write from the POV of a zombie... albeit a newly turned zombie, in this case. I also tried to explore the way the video takes a creepy situation and spins something weirdly cheerful out of it. 
> 
> I went back and forth on whether to call the characters by the same names as the members of Twice. I decided to err on the side of renaming them (sometimes with the same first letter, sometimes with a name that sounded a little similar.) I also stuck with each member's nationality for each character. Momo's 'character' is the main one because Sumi mentioned that Momo is her favorite in the group! 
> 
> **Content notes:** This fic has an overall optimistic tone. However, there are some angsty things in here, because it's the POV of a woman who gets turned into a zombie and undergoes a period of hospitalization because of it (there's very little focus on the medical aspects of it, though.)

Once she’s in the ambulance, Maho is immediately tied down. She becomes the dull, dead epicenter in the midst of a myriad beeping and flickering monitors. The one analyzing her heart rate is a relentless, steady plateau. No pulse at all. The bite mark on her arm has long since failed to bleed, although it refuses to scab up either. These things underpin what she already knows.

Maho is already dead. 

And yet it’s like her heart is still pounding in time to the last song she ever heard with living ears. Maybe the last song she will ever choreograph.

She hopes it’s not the last song she ever enjoys. 

The emergency technician’s voice is much more of a restraint than anything else. It’s calm, cool, and professional. There are hints of compassion, but it seems like another part of his uniform. He’s seen cases like this every week it would seem. Maybe every day. Somehow it tells her she will have to play along, or she will be ejected right from the vehicle to join her new zombie kin. 

“The dance studio wants you to know that it’s deeply apologetic about this incident.” The ambulance is wailing around his words, but they can’t go too quickly. The Category 4 zombies always swarm the roads during this hour. Sometimes people go ahead and run them over, but that’s a very effective way to get stranded after wrecking your car. More often than not, that type of reckless person ends up joining the zombies that they hit.

Maho’s skin is cold, and she can’t tell if it’s because of her newly dead flesh, or because she’s imagining being tossed out of here to join them. 

“How _did_ the studio make such a mistake?” she asks. In the midst of her all-consuming panic, she remembers that no one is _required_ to give her the zombie cure. Governments across the globe are still debating and voting on whether that will be mandatory. If people think she can't be cured, then no amount of money will help her. Even though she wants to scream and cry, she has to avoid seeming like she's desperate to snack on brains. 

The vehicle speeds up again. They must have located an empty area to rush into. A vacuum of space that’s free of the living and the dead. 

“Their guard propped up the door because of the warm temperatures. He turned his back. Zombies can be quite quick.”

“Yes. I realize that.” 

The one that infected her must have been a Category 3 or 4. She’d once watched a documentary that scanned their brainwaves and, apparently they didn’t have full thoughts. As such. But he had displayed a degree of cunning. He had found his way into the building, creeped into her studio, and pounced quickly when he had her in his sights.

Her screams had brought a ton of people running to separate them, and the bite had been shallow. However, it was enough. Her flesh cooled instantly, and her joints feel stiff with something a lot more rotten than arthritis. 

She’s dead, but she’s hungrier than she has been in years. Even now, she looks at this prim man and starts to wonder. To want. 

“They’re already offering a very high payment in damages to you for their negligence.” She has the feeling he must be one of those who resist the word zombie as something too silly or too fictional. Maho is probably one of the 'infected' in his eyes. “I would advise accepting their payment for damages and beginning treatment. There’s no 100% cure, but with those financial resources you’d be able to afford the best. You’d probably have money left over, too.” 

“I’ll take the deal,” Maho says immediately. Maybe she’ll want retribution, someday, but for now she just wants to feel warm again.

* 

Maho’s new home is a converted warehouse. There are enough Category 1 zombies in every major city to warrant the use of a hospital, but large buildings don’t get constructed that quick. Planners in Seoul had made due with this previous abandoned building.

The living don’t want to share their hospitals, so the largest abandoned building had to be re-appropriated for this purpose. On the way to her final destination, she has to distract herself as her handlers punch in key codes to get her through what feels like locked door after locked door. She looks at the painted walls and imagines all the graffiti that must have been painted over to make this place presentable.

She thinks about how even criminals have more options than she does, now. But she also knows that the world’s ruling bodies are still debating and deciding on whether zombies should have rights. And, if so, how many. 

For now, Maho is clearly a walking, dancing pathogen. 

She’s surprised that her room looks like any other hospital. The same sort of beds, the same factory-line gray furniture, the same curtain separating her from the others. It’s hardly homey, but she takes this memories, and creates a baseline out of them. It becomes a foundation of her own humanity. 

She’s helped into bed, and the handlers explain her new schedule. They give her a shot of something and explain that it’s her very first treatment. Tomorrow, just after dawn, things will begin in earnest. 

“You’re fortunate they caught you right away,” one of the nurses says, while Maho waits for the injection to sting. All her nerves are muted, like there’s novocain coursing through her entire body. “If you have a minimal bite and start treatment right away, chances of becoming fully human again are around 80%.” 

She can still do math, she discovers. It had been her favorite subject in school (even though she sent most school days aching to return to the dance studio.) There’s just something about the elegant beauty of numbers. 

_80%, huh?_ That meant a 20% failure, even for lucky cases like her. Just recently she’d be one of ten backup dancers in a successful music video. She lines all those girls up in her head, and imagines two of them wiped from humanity entirely. 

Then she remembers that she’s likely to be one of these girls, if the treatment doesn’t take.

She doesn’t say much, but she’s polite and careful in her responses. Maho doesn’t know how a full recovery is measured. Is it just when her heart starts to beat again? Or is it a cumulative thing. Does she have to sound, look, and act alive, in addition to the medical definition? Who decides such things? Do some doctors put it to a vote? 

All she knows for sure is that it’s a relief when all the nurses leave. Even when she hears the sound of the door being locked from the outside. 

She’s in a bed, but she’s not tired. Do zombies even sleep? She buries her face in her hands and tells herself she’s allowed one hour of sobbing now that she’s alone. However, that’s impossible. She can’t bleed, and she can’t cry. All she can do is laugh, so she helps herself to some frenetic cackling. Maho stares at her fingers and wonders when she'll start to see them rotting. She's been assured that the medicine will hold all her decomposition in stasis, but it's hard to believe in something like that when she's one of the infected.

Maho reaches for the fabric around her, expecting to find an abandoned bed. She shrieks a little when she finds another girl. She’s got pigtails, and she’s playing some app on her phone. Her cheerleader outfit is immaculately clean and free of wrinkles. 

“Sorry for not saying hello,” the girls says. She looks at Maho, smiles a little, and then, miraculously, switches from Korean to Japanese. “People don’t always like to talk their first night here so I try to give them space.”

Maho still doesn’t know what to make of hearing her mother tongue. It’s a significant bit of comfort wherehadn’t expected to find any. “What’s your name?” she asks, finally. And, because she can’t help herself; “Why are you wearing that?”

“I’m Sumiko.” She sits up, now, her hair falling down her shoulders. “And wearing this is part of their curing imitative. Apparently patients respond to treatments better if we surround ourselves with reminders of what we liked. And, well, I came to South Korea because I wanted to be a star. So why not remind myself of the time I got pretty close to being one?” 

Maho looks a little closer, and realizes Sumiko is familiar well beyond a shared nationality. She’s seen her before in a music video. A few months back, a trending girl group had released a title track with a cheerleading theme. The five members had all had the spotlight, of course, each with a uniform with a different color scheme. But there had been background dancers, too, each with the same outfit that Sumiko has on now. 

“I was attacked our last day of shooting,” Sumiko says. “They debated, a little, the ethics of using my footage after that, but I told them to go ahead. I worked hard in that video, and it’s not like I’m dead. I had them send me one of my costumes because wearing it sometimes reminds me what I’ll end up returning to doing once I’m cured.”

_It’s not like I’m dead._

“I came here to be a dancer,” Maho says. "Mostly in music videos."

“This is just a setback you know. Both of us will still achieve our hopes,” Sumiko says. Her smile really is an uplifting sort of thing. It’s like she’s a cheerleader for real. “I believe it.”

*

The weeks blend into carefully orchestrated repetition. The same wakeup time. Injections three times a day. Maho knows what’s in them because of the contract she signed her first day. One cures her, one holds the rotting at bay. Early on, she searched this medication online, and thereby lost a whole afternoon news article comment sections. All those people debating the morality of it. Some don’t like that it can countermand one of the most ancient laws of planet earth. Zombies were bad enough. Reversing death was even worse.

The third injection just suppresses her appetite for human blood and flesh. 

To distract herself from the horror of _that_ , Maho quickly takes to exploring the building. To her surprise, she learns that there’s a strange amount of freedom even in this locked-up building. They might be patients, but there is also a fledgling community. She gets to befriending as many women as possible (the men’s facility is on the other side of the city.)

The youngest girls attend makeshift classrooms on the second floor. Maho and Sumiko end up looking after a schoolgirl named Shu-hui. She’s also from abroad and had been attacked during a family vacation. It doesn’t matter that she’s a foreigner; currently, becoming a zombie erases all ties of nationality in the eyes of the law. Diseased individuals are always treated in the country in which they were infected. When Maho discovers that Shu-hui has been separated from her family despite being a minor, she has to step into a hallway. She tries to catch her breath to slow the rising tide of her anger. But her lungs are dead weight, and all she can do is provide kindness and support. 

And so, whenever Shu-hui passes by, Maho and Sumiko both call out their hellos. Greetings turn into small talk. Small talk turns into genuine conversation. Their second language is a tentative, but firm cord tying the three of them together, and Maho privately marvels at how friendship can grow from the ashes. She waits for all of her human senses to build and return in the same way. 

The facility's older women also have their own, more diverse routines. Some take college classes online. Others sew or listen to music. Quite a few exercise. Maho keeps up her daily dance practices, even though her joins seem to ache all the time. Sometimes she is alone, sometimes Sumiko joins her. And sometimes a whole host of people stop by to cheer her on.

She’s here for a month when she’s eligible for the Human-Zombie Exchange Program. Apparently this is a crucial step on the cure process; if one of the afflicted is frequently bombarded with human interaction, then they are much more likely to make a full recovery.

This means a steady stream of brave do-gooders. All are women, all have plastic name tags pinned to their clothing, all have surreptitious tasers that can knock out a zombie of any Category. Maho quickly learns who she likes the best.

Jang-mi is perpetually energetic, perpetually prone to wearing pink and red. She leads exercise programs in the gym, cheering everyone through an entire treadmill routine. Eventually she and Maho team up to teach dancing classes. If she’s afraid of being alone with Maho she never shows up. 

Dahee seems to show up with new colors in her hair every damn day. She’s supposed to plan mixers between the patients and the visiting humans, but they quickly become raucous affairs full of vaguely frantic dancing. She’s probably breaking all sorts of rules but she gets to stick around because her methods have a proven success rate. 

And then there’s Young-ja. When she had arrived, she became another exercise instructor. At first, Maho thought they wanted to boot her from her informal position alongside Jang-mi. There must be some people in management who wanted an actual human in charge. However, once she discovers that they’re meant to be a group of three, she quickly settles down. 

Soon, the pair of them even have a routine going. Once class is over, they head to the lounge and watch TV together. They become thoroughly engrossed in the plotlines even though neither of them were into dramas prior to all this. Sometimes they vigorously debate over the best outcome of a love triangle even though Maho knows she never cared about that stuff before.

“Though I just never had time to do this before I got stuck here,” Maho confesses one day, as the credits roll on the latest episode. “If I had an hour of free time to watch something, I also had an hour to nap. And I always chose to nap.” 

Young-ja sinks deeper into the couch. She can never seem to truly sit still. “I prefer movies.” She pauses, as though thinking someone over. Then she just goes for it. “In my last job, my coworkers and I actually used to screen them for the zombies. Kind of like drive through movie theaters? We did it for the ones outside that haven’t had any treatment, I mean.”

Maho feels like she’s hearing a language she’s never heard before. She feels like she’s hearing a language that has never even been spoken on _earth_. “Why?” 

“Because it seems to do them good. Whenever the patrols go by and they use a radar on the zombies that watched the movies there were always some that went from being a Category 4 to a Category 3. I’ve even heard rumors that one or two became a Category 2, and they were brought to a place like this, and rehabilitated.” 

It causes a seismic shift for Maho. Until now she’s drawn a clear distinction between Categories 1 and 2 (different levels of health problems due to being legally _dead_ but still basically sentient) and Categories 3 and 4 (different levels of flat-out rotting.) 

Now, she realizes, they’re really all on a continuum. All four categories of zombies. Humans are on that continuum as well. A dangerous sense of hope sneaks into her. 

“What did you play for them anyway? Documentaries? That must be good brain food.” _Hah hah **hah.**_

“Romantic comedies, mostly.”

“Go figure.”

*

Maho her e-reader out, and she's scrolling through a book even. The afternoon sun streams through the window and makes the screen over bright, but the ability stop and dive into someone else’s world has become a rare pleasure. She does this every day, now, even though she hadn’t been much of a reader in her previous life 

(This is a life, still, she’s decided by now. She won’t let political rhetoric or internet comments define her perceptions of reality. She’s holding to that conversation with Young-ja and everything that it inspired. Maho might have an unusual sickness, but she is alive.) 

When she looks up, there’s a young woman in her doorway. She has long black hair and an elegant, yet youthful outfit. She wears pearls around her neck, and her red lipstick reminds Maho that she needs her appetite suppressor soon. 

She’s completely aware of this visitor’s identity. Her face probably adorns the advertisements of countless magazines right now. 

Nam-sun. Formerly a very popular trainee who debuted with a much anticipated girl groups. She was attacked after her very first music show performance. Those had been the early days, before the cure had been normalized. Naturally, everyone had been prepared to write her off.

But the beta testing of the cure had stuck to Nam-sun. Her recovery had been documented on a very popular show and, even before her convalesce had been 100%, she had garnered tons of advertisement deals. After, she had released solos and starred in shows. She's easily one of the most famous and successful ex-zombies. Not just in South Korea, but on the entire planet. 

After recovery, Nam-sun must have hit the ground running. There’s something in her eyes that makes it look like she still racing forward, even now. 

“I heard that you’re a talented dancer,” Nam-sun says to Maho, after they make their perfunctory greetings.

Previously, Maho might have downplayed it in order to be more palatable. Now, though… She might have decided she’s still alive, but she also knows that people don’t expect tact from zombies. 

“I’m very talented,” she says, remembering a particular performance when the audience’s staring was like a near physical thing propelling her forward. 

“Great.” Nam-sun smiles, bearing her teeth a little. “I want to stage a guerrilla dance performance several months from now. If you’re as good as you say, then I want you to be one of the lead performers.” 

Maho sits up and stands. “You do realize what I am, right?” she asks, even though Nam-sun, of all people, should know perfectly well.

“Yes.”

“So you want to debut… a zombie dancing group. For the novelty of it all.” The idea would turn Maho’s stomach if she could still experience nausea. It’s precious at best, and demeaning at worst.

Nam-sun looks genuinely apologetic. “Ah, sorry. I really do rush into things. No, the concept would be several… zombies from here.” She didn’t like that word either. “And several of the un-infected women that work here. The idea would be to display how little difference there is between the two groups. I think it would be to display that cures really do work and that former zombies can interact fine with humans.” 

That’s a better idea, but still weird in Maho’s opinions. “But you exist. People already know that the infection can be reversed because we see you everywhere.”

Nam-sun shakes her head, sending perfectly coiffed tresses flying. “People think that I’m an exception to the rule. I want to change that somehow.” 

“I’ll do it,” Maho says. The idea is still a bit bizarre to her, almost as bizarre as Young-ja’s cinema adventures with zombies. She doesn’t know if the idea would work, but she wants to spend time with the person peculiar enough- and creative enough- to come up with something like this. And, above all, she needs to perform again. 

“Thank you.” Now she sees Nam-sun’s smile and... _oh no_. Oh no. 

*

The day comes when Maho realizes that she’s no longer one of the newbies. She’s become an old hand at all this. 

One of the workers tells her and Sumiko that there’s another girl from Japan. It’s not really a demand or a request, but there’s a suggestion in it. People recover faster when surrounded by familiar things, and language is a part of that. 

However, the new girl- Marise- has succumbed to the isolation and loneliness that plagues a lot of recent arrivals. Maho thinks it probably would have gotten to her, too, if she hadn’t immediately been pulled, magnet-like, into Sumiko’s orbit.

Marise politely and firmly tells them to go away every time they visit. 

“We can’t give up,” Sumiko says, on a day when she and Maho head to the makeshift dance studio. They’ve begun rehearsal with Nam-sun, and they’re taking every chance they get to practice. “It’s important. Sometimes people give into despair and just… never make it.” 

Maho is, indeed, inclined to give up today (on Marise and everything else in her life) but she recognizes the wisdom in Sumiko is saying. It’s why she’s consented to being dragged to this room several times a week. 

Classical music is filtering through the door when they arrive, and she knows her expression mirrors Sumiko’s startled glance. It’s just not the kind of tune that emanates from this place. 

They poke their heads in and are even more startled to find Marise. She glides through ballet steps, alighting on her toes, arching her legs through the air. She makes it look as effortless as an autumn leave dancing on the wind, or rose petals drifting on the breeze. 

In the midst of observing this, Maho realizes she’s drawing breaths in, then pushing them back out. It’s a simple mechanism- breathing- a strange bit of engineering in the body. She’d lost the ability when she died, but now it has returned. Probably because true art has been so lacking in her life, lately.

Breathing can bring a sense of calm, but it can also fuel panic attacks. She tries to remind herself of this latter fact, so that she’ll always be vigilant. But mostly she wants to spin around from joy, all the same. She wants to do a pas de deux with this girl.

When she’s finished, Sumiko claps her hands and cheers, and Marise actually drops into a curtsy. She has a pinkish glow to her, and most wouldn’t know she’s a zombie. The applause seems to cheer her as much as the dance itself. That’s something Maho can understand.

“I came to Seoul with my company. I was in the corps de ballet,” Marise explain and Maho wonders why no one shared this with her. Their dance styles might be different, but they share a camaraderie shaped around musical beats, choreography, and aching feet. 

“I hope to be a principal performer someday,” Marise adds, eliding the story about how she ended up here. But that hardly matters. That’s hardly the most important detail about any of them. “I know all kinds of dance styles, but ballet is my favorite.”

“You will. I promise. You will.” Turns out that Sumiko gives this pep talk to nearly everyone, not just Maho. It might seem annoying and insincere from anyone else. Sumiko, though, seems to believe it. She seems to believe everything she says.

It’s inspiring, actually. 

“Yes,” Maho says, even though she’s never participated in this sort of thing before. “Yes, this is just a setback. You’ll get there.”

Sumiko must be surprised, but she doesn’t point it out. Instead, all three sit down together, and talk about their lives. 

And from then on, all three of them are a permanent fixture in this studio. Soon Marise starts to breathe again, too. Soon she takes her place in Nam-sun’s dance group. 

*

Traffic reports broadcast a lot more than crashes and jams. Now they also share the precise level of zombie activities on the roads. No one knows quite why, but they always seem to swarm on warm nights.

Nam-sun is visiting the facility on one such evening. She’s being understated about it, but Maho notices her checking some traffic app on her phone every few minutes. She barely says goodbye to any of them when rehearsal ends. She just stands there, glaring down at the screen, looking like she wants to bite her nails.

“No matter how much you do that, it’s not going to have any effect on them,” Maho says when they are alone. Just to be obnoxious. Nam-sun already knows this, but there’s something enviable about a person who can leave whenever they want. 

Nam-sun clearly knows she’s being goaded. She glares a little, and it’s the first crack in her idol façade. All at once, Maho’s ire fades. Somehow she likes Nam-sun better for this display of irritation. 

Then the mask goes back up, and Maho mourns a little. “Sorry, that was rude of me. I have a tight schedule, but I should work hard while I’m here.”

Maho shakes her head, uncomfortable with the hint of cringing. She liked that hint of grumpy Nam-sun much better than this. “You’re several hours over the time you were supposed to be here, right? Anyone would be annoyed by that. Especially you. You’re on of the busiest people on the planet.”

“Yes, but I can reasonably expect people to be understanding if I’m delayed. After all, we all know what it’s like to have zombies derail your plans.” 

They both laugh, mutually bitter, because who knows better than them? Commiseration lingers in the air along with Nam-sun’s faint perfume. 

They end up relocating to a lounge room because it has some of the better windows in this place. Maho leans her head against the glass, and wishes she could feel breeze on her skin again. It’s been so long. 

Nam-sun is going through her purse and pulls out a few bottles of something. They all have the same plastic wrapping with strangely beautiful designs, and there’s no mistaking what it is.

“How did you manage to smuggle in soju?” 

One of the other human visitors had once tried to bring in a bubble blower but the thing had been confiscated. Alcohol seemed entirely out of the question, and Maho is impressed that Nam-sun would attempt it. Let alone succeed. 

“A squeaky clean image pays, sometimes,” Nam-sun says.

They huddle around the window, quietly finishing the bottle together. It’s hard to know if Maho can still get intoxicated. Sometimes she takes a swig, it burns all the way down, and she thinks she’s never been this sober. Sometimes she’ll look at Nam-sun- her lips, her expressive hands, the warmth of her irises- and the inside of Maho’s head swims around. The whole world seems to spin twice as fast. 

“I should stop drinking,” she says. “I don’t think I can get drunk yet, so maybe you should save this for someone who will definitely enjoy it.” 

“What's your cure rate?” Nam-sun asks. It might be the most frequent question heard in this place, even taking the place of ‘how are you?’ Maho deflates a little at that.

“Last I heard, they placed my cure level at 80%.” 

When Nam-sun leans in to whisper, some of her hair falls on Maho’s shoulders and collarbones. “I’m at 100%. I’m fully human again. But caffeinated things still have no effect on me.” She whispers like a petitioner confessing to a priest. Swept away by this sentiment, Maho squeezes Nam-sun’s hand, and Nam-sun presses back. “There are some things that just aren’t the same again, despite what people want.”

Maho is absurdly grateful for this admission, even if some might call it depressing. It has the ring of truth to it, and that's something rare and valuable 

“You did well for yourself, though,” Maho says. They’re both staring out the window again, looking at the lights that dot the cityscape. Her hand is on the small of Nam-sun’s back for some reason. “Probably better than you would have in that girl group.”

This statement feels even more relevant tonight. Nam-sun’s former girl group is making waves, today, because one of the members has chosen to leave. It’s been the source of gossip all day in this wing of the treatment facility. People only started to shut up about once they learned Nam-sun was going to show up.

“I want to do more than just have this one guerrilla dance performance. I want to start my own studio,” Nam-sun confesses. “I have the money for it. I could hire people like… like us. I know we have trouble finding work after. I only manage to do well for myself because I had a lot of connections, already, and people willing to bet they’d make a lot of money off the novelty of my career. It’s hard enough to make it here when you aren’t a zombie. I could hire all of you, probably. If you were willing.”

Maho turns her head, and notes that their lips are very close. “Are you offering me a job?”

Nam-sun’s earnestness remains, but it takes on an interesting, appraising edge. “Yes. I think I could watch you dance all day, honestly.”

It’s an invitation and a demand. 

It’s probably a come on, too. 

She imagines sitting Nam-sun down, and then dancing up to this woman. The images mutate into her sitting in Nam-sun’s lap and biting her neck. Before all this, such a mental image would just be a rather harmless fantasy. Now she worries that this a prelude to something terrible. 

Maho has to remind herself that she’s still got 20% of the way to go. She points toward the window again. Not towards the lights, but the writhing chasm below. “You know what I keep thinking about lately? Everyone is quick to care about Category 1 zombies like me because we still look human.” And some people think that’s what Nam-sun still is, too. Forever a zombie. “But what about the Category 4 types? Who cares about them? Are you going to have them in your studio?” 

Nam-sun is quiet, but not terribly defensive in her posture. She just listens to Maho, then paces around, her skirt swaying around her thighs. “Actually, did you hear the recent news? That music might cure them?”

Maho had. “Yeah, but that sounds fake.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite real. I have my sources. And I want to do a lot of live concerts for them.”

They both stare out the window some more, and Maho laughs. Because of course Nam-sun has ‘sources.’

“So you’ll hire the downtrodden, _and_ save the worst of the worst by producing catchy music? How are you real?”

“You sound bitter,” Nam-sun says, and Maho thinks she’s getting a glimpse of who she used to be. Not even idol turned zombie, but the Nam-sun of years before that; the trainee who had had no idea if she’d ever make it. The girl worried about being a discarded cog in the machine. 

“I am sometimes, but less so with you.” 

Nam-sun gives her a side long glance and says nothing.

It’s getting late, and Maho soon offers to show Nam-sun to one of the heavily guarded guest rooms. Eventually staff will realize she never left and will escort her there anyway. Nam-sun surprises her once more. 

“Actually, I saw that you and Sumiko have an empty bed. Can I stay there tonight? I know they’d let me do it.”

This is even more shocking than the bottle of soju. “Oh, um okay." 

Nam-sun seems to enjoy seeing her a little flustered.

Nothing happens on the way to the room, and nothing happens that long night. But Maho’s mind races all the while.

*

Here’s the thing about rehearsals, in this place; they’re fun. The group of girls argue and complain, but they also laugh and joke around. 

There’s a sense of autonomy, too. Nam-sun isn’t an experienced choreographer, but Maho is. She gets to author the exact steps that will deliver them from obscurity. It’s a horrible responsibility and more exhilarating than a roller coaster. Sometimes Marise, Young-ja, and Jang-mi all weigh in. Sumiko could as well, but she’s busy with costumes, and soon Shu-hui is helping her with that.

All cities can be cold and distant, and Maho had experienced that when she moved here. She meant very little to her bosses, and it had been hard to bond with her coworkers. She knows that this dance group will be the exception to the rule in what will (hopefully) be a long life of performing. She’s not afraid to dive back into that cutthroat world. In some ways she looks forward to the challenge. Maybe she’s exactly like Nam-sun. Maybe she’s prepared to rush forward, not letting anything stop her. 

Still, this whole experience is like a pocket of unexpected grace. A quiet space in a teeming riot. 

The best day comes with Shu-hui and Sumiko come to the treatment facility with their costumes. A very familiar kind of excitement flutters in Maho’s chest.

“I always loved this part. Getting to finally see what we'll wear...” Marise whispers to Maho, and Maho can only nod. 

The costumes are pretty cool. None of them look the same, but they all have details that match one another and paint them as a cohesive whole. Lots of army print, lots of red. Youthful and fun after months in which Maho hasn’t felt like either thing. 

However, as Maho changes into her designated outfit, she knows that the appearance isn’t the point. Rather, it’s the excitement of everything. The proof that they are about to perform. In their song, she’s quite feisty and bold. As she pulls the shirt over her head, the clothes setting in around her and she starts to feel the part.

Soon she will be in front of an _audience_ , after months of thinking she was living in a grave.

Maho swaggers for everyone. The rest of their group applauds, Dahee cheers, and Maho poses like an idol who just finished a performance.

Nam-sun is smiling wryly as she approaches. 

“I think your hair should be up for this.”

Her fingers slide through Maho’s tresses a bit, loosening it a little. She has to resist the urge to sigh contentedly. 

“Oh!” Nam-sun gasps a little. “I can see your roots. Did you dye your hair just before coming here? “

Maho nods. “The day before actually.” What a waste of money.

I think you hair must be growing again!”

Other than that little outburst, Nam-sun doesn’t make a big deal of it. She just styles things so that Maho has a loose ponytail. 

Knowing that her hair is growing is great, for sure. However, it’s even better to know that Nam-sun is staring at Maho and clearly thinking that she’s pretty. 

This really is a great costume. Maybe, on the day she’s released, she’ll wear it out into the sunlight.

*

Maho’s 95% cured when they all sneak up to the roof together. 

Secrets lurk, even in communities like this where everyone lives cheek-to-cheek. When no one was looking, Dahee became friends with Chun-ja, the most recent addition to the group. Almost as young as Shu-hui, but Chun-ja's carefully applied eyeliner that made her look years older. She’s so talented she picked up on the dance moves almost immediately.

Which meant she had time to help hatch plans. Dahee stole a keycard to the upper levels of the building. Afternoons tended to be quiet around here, and the nine of them stole up to the roof. Chun-ja was the one to swipe the card, the one to open the door, the one to urge them all outside. 

At first, the sunlight is almost something she can _taste._ The breeze tosses her hair, and fills her mouth, and it’s like she’s breathing in this city. The scent of humanity, the scent of the undead. Cars, and food, and flowers. Spring has almost violently burst into being, and when her eyes itch she’s never been happier to experience allergies. 

She’s thinks she must be alive again and it has nothing to do with being almost cured. 

They talk and laugh, dance and sing out in open air. And Maho _knows_ she must be alive again. She stays until almost everyone has gone back inside. Everyone but Nam-sun

Maho can look around and get a better sense of this area. Unlike the rest of the treatment facility, no one bothered to paint over the graffiti. So she sees it all. This mad swirl of sentiment from the early days of the plague. Maho had been a toddler, then. Living across a sea, learning to walk in an entirely different country. A few years later, still, she would have been just starting learning to dance, as the newly-made world decided what to do with the undead. 

But now, below her feet, she sees everyone’s first, wild reactions to the pandemic. Curses and pleas are interspersed between smudges of washed-away blood. There are bible verses, too. Contact numbers and last messages to loved ones. Here and there she sees someone’s feverish hopes; not just for safety, but sometimes for a better world.

Maho looks at Nam-sun again. Her back is turned, but the sunset is caught in her dyed hair, bringing out all the reds in her light brunette tresses. She’s wearing those pearls again, but all Maho can see is the neck below. There's a scar there from rot before her decomposition reversed itself, but it's old and faded. Just one more battle wound from Nam-sun's busy life.

Maho's looking down at the sprawl of the city. Cars honk without any sort of rhythm to it; this is the one way to reliably scare zombies away without a weapon. Then, when she makes her way over to Nam-sun, she sees her companions true, soft smile. 

“That was a nice evening, wasn’t it?” Nam-sun asks.

They look out into the city together, but Maho can hardly see it. Her knuckles brush against Nam-sun’s and she wants to giggle. For no reason. 

“I’m amazed you come back here. If I were you I’d give never look back,” Maho says. 

Nam-sun’s fingers intertwine with Maho’s and it reminds her of the day her lungs started to work again, but in reverse. Now she can’t breathe again. Now she’s lightheaded with the lack of that ability. She looks down at Nam-sun’s phone. She has some weird radar app on it that shows movements within the hospital. So far no one seems to be rushing to bring them back.

“I’m not sure I believe that about you,” Nam-sun says. “I felt that way when I first got out, but once I was free I just… couldn’t forget.” 

Maho can’t look that far into the future, and it’s something of a blessing. There’s something to be said about this exact moment. This exact sunset. This exact girl.

“Sometimes I already feel free around the others. And you.” 

Nam-sun gives her a look that’s hard to read, but it makes Maho step in much closer. 

“What do you want?” Nam-sun asks, point blank, direct in a way she can never be in interviews or variety shows. She’s staring at Maho’s lips like it would okay if they mutually devoured one another. “From me?”

Maho gently takes Nam-sun’s face in her hands and then kisses her. 

_I want to live. I want you. I think those things are related, now._

Nam-sun tastes like lipstick, and soju. The sense of freedom is overwhelming, and their grip on each other is stronger than onlookers might expect. Finally, Maho gets to kiss Nam-sun’s neck. She gets to lick across her throat. There’s a hunger in her but it has nothing to do with a desire to harm. And she inspires soft panting noises and discreet moans, and suddenly there’s a pressure in Maho’s ribcage like she’s been shot.

“Maho?” 

Everything’s stopped, and Nam-sun’s hands are on Maho’s breastbone. Then her partner _grins._

“Your heart just started again…” 

Maho checks the pulse in her neck. It’s pounding and pounding and she laughs giddily. “Don’t get too smug about this.”

"Too late!"

They kiss until the sun sets, until Maho thinks her heart should grind to a halt again. It never does.

*

The bus ride couldn’t be more different than being in the ambulance. Maho is surrounded by people, all who know her. All who care about her. Whether their human or zombie or something in between. Sumiko and Maho share a seat and chatter incessantly about everything they see on the horizon. Sights old, and sights new.

When they arrive at the stage, she and Nam-sun hold hands in the wings while they wait to be announced.

“Why aren’t you doing that?” Maho asks. Her heart is pounding from love and from nerves and it’s so distracting. She wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Because I’m part of your group.”

They go out on stage and the crowd is cheering. She can’t tell if it’s from genuine appreciation or a desire to make noise about how strange this all is. But she has faith in their performance, and she knows that’s all that people will be able to see very soon.

There’s a fence down the middle of the crowd. Humans on one side and zombies on the other. Someday- hopefully soon- that fence won’t be necessary. 

She’ll dance until that day comes. And then she’ll keep on dancing.


End file.
